A Tribute To NBA Welfare Gurus By Sabastine Anyia

May I respectfully pay tribute to our great colleagues who have served NBA as welfare secretaries over the years. They are: Barth Okoye, Duro Adeyeye SAN, Ruben James, Gani Ajape, U.O. Sule SAN, Kelvin Ejelonu, Alebelewe, Adegite and our own Joshua Enemali for their sacrifices that have taken us thus far.

We can’t thank or appreciate you people enough for the good work you have put in the service of our colleagues. I salute you people and pray God to reward you a million fold.

It gladdens my heart to inform you that the ECNBA 2020 has cleared me to contest for the office of Welfare Secretary of our great Association. I want to succeed in this office but I cannot succeed without tapping from your wealth of experience. I seek your blessings and support as I work hard to step into the office you people have occupied. In Africa tradition a father must bless his son to succeed.

I shall consolidate on your good works and with your assistance, improve on it to meet the present realities and challenges confronting our great association.
You will agree with me that during your time, each had a peculiar challenge that confronted the NBA; so it has been till date.
Today challenges are Police and Road safety incessant harassment and detention of our learned colleagues.
A colleague will be locked up in the police station just for asking for the bail of his client.

Nigeria Police Force is gradually losing respect for lawyers. You must have heard of what happened to Emperor’s case, even when he was granted bail by the court, he is still under Police detention. What about the Road safety? Once they see the NBA sticker on your car, they must park your vehicle to embarrass you. Their attitude is a clear declaration of war on members of our association.

It is my desire as the welfare secretary to put an end to this embarrassment by the Police and Road safety on our colleagues. I will want to work closely with you people to actualize this dream. Our people say two heads are better than one. Imagine these good heads working with me, we will take NBA welfare to the best standard.

Another area I will like to work and improve on is on the sustainability of our young lawyers. Improve their source of income, their aura in the society, take our job of prosecution from the police and give to our colleagues who are trained in the act. You will recall that every year, our law schools produce thousands of lawyers yet there are not enough offices to take them and not enough jobs for them. The few jobs we have are taken over by the police. I suggest seriously that ministry of Justice should be open in all the Local Government Areas in this country where young lawyers will be posted to work. They shall be headed by few seniors who will teach them the act of prosecution. These lawyers shall take over the prosecution of cases from the police. This will help to engage thousands of our colleagues that are called to bar every year.

You can imagine how many condolence messages of our colleagues have been sent out from February this year to June. I am sorry to say some of our colleagues before they could pay their medical bills for the treatment to start it will be too late. Some do not even have the money to pay for the bills because of the exorbitant medical charges. I shall present to Mr. President a bill that will allow our great association to take care of the medical bills of young lawyers and deserving members who are hospitalized for one terminal illness/disease or another above five hundred thousand naira should be taken care of by the Association.

Distinguished colleagues and my Predecessor in the office of welfare secretary by the grace of God, we have all seen what corona virus pandemic has caused us and our Association. It was our few generous rich colleagues that came to our rescue. To avoid the repeat of this, I shall advocate and put forward the establishment of NBA TRUST FUND. Our Association should set up a trust fund for her members for emergency situations like this Covid 19 pandemic. The Nigerian Bar Association should as a matter of urgency organize a trust fund and urge our rich colleagues to donate money for its sustainability to help the young and the less privileged colleagues among us. There are some of our colleagues who are more blessed than others and I’m confident that they will respond to all genuine course in this respect as they have shown over the years that they are charitable to members of our Association.

I am also worried that lawyers scale of charges is not working but that of other professions like surveyors is working perfectly. NBA must put in motion a condition that every agreement prepared by a lawyer young or old must attract 10%. With this, young lawyers financial position will improve.

Sirs, the issue of stamp and seal is another area I will like you people to assist me in making it a reality. I shall work with Mr. President to ensure that upon payment of practicing fee as at when due every lawyer will automatically be entitled to one pack of stamp and seal. They can only pay when the pack freely granted to them finishes.

The above are attainable, I intend to work vigorously to actualize them. You people shall be my pillars as I consolidate on your effort made over the years to have a better welfare package for our Association.

You are all heroes, I thank you all and salute your good works. Let’s work together.